Media Attacks Midwives/Home Births!

I used to love the Today Show and trusted their reporting as fair and balanced. That was until I saw this "investigative" piece on Friday entitled "The Perils of Home Births." The title alone screams we-are-about-to-warn-you-about-a-threat-to-society! I watched it anyway since I had recently used a midwife, and I am considering a home birth for our next baby. This so-called investigative report uses a worst-case-scenario to question the "trend" of women giving birth at home. At the centerpiece of this report is a NYC couple discussing the loss of their daughter during a botched delivery in which she was in labor for four days! Four days?! The baby girl was born limp and could not be resuscitated by the midwife nor the doctors at the hospital after they were transported. This story hit home because I was in a similar "perilous" position except my midwife used her professional judgment to transport me when she realized something was wrong. I will be forever grateful to her for acting quickly and to the obstetrician who delivered Marlie because she was in distress and could have died. While I was disappointed that I did not deliver at the birthing center as planned, I am more thrilled that I have my healthy baby girl.

Now, I wasn't present at this couple's home birth, so I am not going to speculate as to what may have happened, but what they did reveal spoke volumes. They claim they chose their midwife after seeing her featured in the Rikki Lake's The Business of Being Born, a documentary that promotes the benefits of natural birth. The reporter uses this as evidence that pregnant women are following what's popular with celebrities and ignoring the risks. The fact that the reporter implies that women who choose this route are doing so because it's in-style really pisses me off! I feel the entire report amounts to a thinly-veiled scare tactic. Where was the investigative report when women started scheduling C-sections like a certain Spice Girl? I don't care what method you choose to deliver your baby, you should never surrender your health care to anyone. Not all midwives are the same, just like all doctors are not the same. You need to do your homework, educate yourself, and interview potential maternity care providers. Otherwise, you can end up with the same tragic result as this couple (at home, at a birthing center, or even at a hospital). I can tell you point-by point why we chose to use a midwife at a birthing center and it wasn't because we saw some commercial. It was an educated decision we made after weighing a lot of options. I have several friends who delivered their babies at home without incident, and while I used them as inspiration, I did not just simply follow in their footsteps.
Some people may ask if I would choose a midwife/birth center again since I wound up at the hospital anyway. The answer is, YES! As a matter of fact, I would like to have a home birth the next time (god willing). It is still my opinion that a hospital is not the only safe place to have a baby. Still, midwifery care and home birth is not for everyone. Some women, especially those with high-risk pregnancies, need medical supervision during pregnancy, labor, and delivery. Some healthy women will need medical intervention during labor and delivery because of unforeseen complications. In my case, the midwife could not tell that the cord was around Marlie's neck, but she knew something was off and called the hospital. We chose this particular birthing center specifically for its standing relationship with a hospital located one block away. We did not just buy into a storybook ideal. We made sure we had a back-up plan. We were responsible parents-to-be who made the best choice for us, and I resent any media portrayal that insinuates that we just jumped on a bandwagon, or worse, were being reckless.